Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: Money; What is Truly Valuable?

Matthew 6:19-24, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!  “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

Let’s break this up and take the first part where he says, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth.”  And the reason that he gives for not doing this is because it’ll be destroyed.  It can be stolen and taken away from you.  In other words, anything that you lay up for yourself as wealth in this life is temporary.  You can’t take it with you when you’re gone! 

It’s like that story that Jesus told about the landowner who had a bumper crop one year.  He’s like, “Oh wow!  Look at this windfall.  There’s far more here than I can store in my barns.  It’s more than I need.”  So, what does he do?  He says to himself, “I’ll tear down these barns and build bigger ones and store up all this wealth.  And then, I’m just going to relax and take it easy.  Early retirement, right?”  But God criticizes him and calls him a fool.  Because he’s going to die, then who will get all that wealth that he’s stored up?  And Jesus said after telling that parable, “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. 

Here's a question we really need to ask: What should the man have done? 

Well, what should you do when you have far more than you need?  I knew a couple who received a fairly substantial inheritance, unexpectedly.  They had no idea this relatively large sum of money was going to fall into their laps.  And they were like, “Ok, what do we do with it?”  They were believers, and they knew the Scriptures, so they said, “well first, we need to tithe.”  So, they tithed 10%.  Then they said, “we’ve got debts, it’s probably best if we paid off our debts.  So, they had some student loans they paid off.  After this, they put some money away for their kid’s college education.  They hadn’t bought a home yet, so they laid some aside for a down payment on a home.  They put a modest amount in investments.  But then they had this extra.  There was more.  So, they prayed about and decided, “You know, we have more here than we need.  What if we give the excess away?  Not in a frivolous way, but what if we devote this portion to God? 

Here's heart of the matter: why keep more than you need when there are those around you who lack the basic things? 

Let’s go back to the earlier question: What should the landowner in Jesus’ parable have done?  The answer seems obvious now, doesn’t it?  He should have shared the love!  Right?  And even if he didn’t give it away, couldn’t he have sold the excess at a discount as a blessing to his neighbors?  Of course he could have. 

This reminds me of a funny Forest Gump quote, “Mama said there’s only so much fortune a man really needs, the rest is just for showing off.”  And Forest took that to mean, it’s just for giving away.  And the character of Forest Gump is meant to be this character that is pure and innocent, very naïve, but undefiled.  If you’ve seen the movie, he obeys this aspect of the sermon on the mount, even if he does it unintentionally.  There really is only so much money you need.  Why horde it?  Share the love. 

Now, this isn’t at all against savings or even investments.  The book of proverbs, for example, tells us that saving and investing is wise.  I’ll tell you why I think we have such a problem with this.  It’s because deciding how much is enough can feel subjective.  I think we would like things to be more clear cut than that.  “Could you please just give me a concrete answer.”  But that’s not what we have.  And this is why the body of Christ is so important.  Our brothers and sisters in Christ can and should be able to hold us accountable when it comes to our finances (it’s not like that’s off limits).  If we start to see red flags, you know, like someone racking up credit card debt, but rarely putting anything in the offering plate, we should have a conversation about that. 

And we can have this conversation because of the teaching of Jesus.  Where are you placing value in?  Are you placing more value in your comfort, on your toys, on your vacations than on the health and well being of others?  Or are you placing more value in your peace of mind that a certain, relatively large, amount of cash is saved for a rainy day than on what pleases God? 

Some of these things, you just have to go to God about and work it out between you and him.  The answer isn’t always so clear cut what “enough” is.

But we know what pleases God, because Jesus tell us that we store up treasure in heaven, we bank up an eternal reward in heaven, when we bless others.  So consider this when you’re making financial decisions. 

The next thing Jesus mentions is this, what to some can be a strange figure of speech about the eye being a lamp for the body.  And it really has to do with covetousness and greed.  When you are always looking out for the Joneses, what they have, your eye is darkened, and you stop letting light into your soul.  And if you think you’re a good person, and you think your wealth means that God is blessing you because your wealth just keeps on growing, the light that you think you have is really darkness.  That’s the problem with the rich religious men of Jesus’ day.  They thought “I’m rich, therefore God is blessing me, therefore God is pleased with me.”  That was wrong.  Actually, they were greedy.  They had an excess and didn’t care about these other people.  But this created a situation where the light they thought they had was actually darkness, and the darkness ran deep. 

We Americans, living in the richest nation on the planet, are very blessed and we have a lot to be thankful for.  But we need to be very, very cautious when it comes to wealth, because it’s likely that we, more than anyone else in the world, are in danger of becoming enslaved to mammon, to material wealth.  Let’s put wealth in its proper place, as a tool for meeting our needs, and doing good for others.  And let’s make sure to keep ourselves free from bondage to it as a master.